Nature of the Revolt

Views differ on the nature of the 1857 revolt. It was a mere ‘Sepoy Mutiny’ to some British historians—“a wholly unpatriotic and selfish Sepoy Mutiny with no native leadership and no popular support”, said Sir John Seeley. However, that is not a complete picture of the event as it involved many sections of the civilian population and not just the sepoys. The discontent of the sepoys was just one cause of the disturbance.

Dr K. Datta considers the revolt of 1857 to have been “in the main a military outbreak, which was taken advantage of by certain discontented princes and landlords, whose interests had been affected by the new political order”. The last mentioned factor gave it an aura of a popular uprising in certain areas. It was “never all-Indian in character, but was localised, restricted and poorly organised”. Further, says Datta, the movement was marked by absence of cohesion and

unity of purpose among the various sections of the rebels.

It was at the beginning of the twentieth century that the 1857 revolt came to be interpreted as a “planned war of national independence”, by V.D. Savarkar in his book, The Indian War of Independence, 1857. Savarkar called the revolt the first war of Indian independence. He said it was inspired by the lofty ideal of self rule by Indians through a nationalist upsurge. Dr S.N. Sen in his Eighteen Fifty- Seven considers the revolt as having begun as a fight for religion but ending as a war of independence.

Dr R.C. Majumdar, however, considers it as neither the

first, nor national, nor a war of independence as large parts of the country remained unaffected and many sections of the people took no part in the upsurge.

According to some Marxist historians, the 1857 revolt was “the struggle of the soldier-peasant democratic combine against foreign as well as feudal bondage”. However, this view can be questioned in the light of the fact that the leaders of the revolt themselves came from a feudal background. Jawaharlal Nehru considered the revolt of 1857 as essentially a feudal uprising though there were some nationalistic elements in it (Discovery of India). M.N. Roy felt the revolt was a last ditch stand of feudalism against commercial capitalism. R.P. Dutt also saw the significance of the revolt of the peasantry against foreign domination even as he acknowledged it to be a defence of the old feudal

order.

The revolt of 1857 is not easy to categorise. While one can easily dismiss some views such as those of L.E.R. Rees who considered it to be a war of fanatic religionists against Christians or T.R. Holmes who saw in it a conflict between civilisation and barbarism, one cannot quite go so far as to accept it as a war for independence. It had seeds of nationalism and anti-imperialism but the concept of common nationality and nationhood was not inherent to the revolt of 1857.

It is doubtful if the separate communities that participated in the revolt did so because they felt a common nationhood. Furthermore, what of the southern section which was not a part of the revolt? Each of the leaders had a